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TSMC says Taiwan quake had "minimal impact" on operations |
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Dec 27, 2006 at 11:22 AM |
When I heard about the sizeable earthquake off the southern coast of Taiwan, I thought of the fabs in Tainan and fired off emails to the media contacts at TSMC and UMC.
I haven't heard back from UMC yet, but I received a general announcement from the TSMC folks earlier today. Here's the text.
"An earthquake occurred yesterday [Dec. 26] at 8:26 pm measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale at its epicenter off the coast of Pingtung county and felt at 2.0 on the Richter scale in Hsinchu and 4.0 in Tainan.
As the earthquake measured 4.0 in Tainan, TSMC’s Emergency Response Center (ERC) immediately initiated emergency response procedures out of consideration for employee safety, and evacuated all personnel from buildings at the Tainan site.
Inspection reports show that the Hsinchu site was completely unaffected and all operations are normal. At the Tainan site, TSMC halted operation of several pieces of equipment in order to protect materials and to conduct related inspections, but production lines quickly resumed manufacturing. Initial estimates are that this earthquake had minimal impact on TSMC’s operations."
If I hear anything from UMC, more specific info from TSMC (which "pieces of equipment," how many wafer lots were affected, what kind of inspections?), or news from any other Taiwanese company, I'll pass it along. And if anyone has additional information on the effect of the quake on fabs and other microelectronics facilities and operations in Taiwan, please post a comment to this story.
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